Sunday, March 20, 2011

The Mother’s Subtle Body

Today I would like to share with you an occult experience which was narrated to me by Jhumur-di (Shrimati Jhumur Bhattacharya, one of the most pretty and elegant sadhikas of the Ashram who is an inmate since the early 1940s; she is a teacher in Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education and a fine actress who has taken part in Sri Aurobindo’s dramas likeVasavadutta, Rodogune, Perseus the Deliverer, Vikramorvasieto name a few but above all she is extremely caring and affectionate so much so that she radiates love). I had asked her whether she had met Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in the subtle physical or not and had also enquired whether she had seen them with her eyes open. She replied in the affirmative and narrated to me the following experience. During the Darshan of 24th April 1995, while Jhumur-di was standing in front of the Mother’s balcony, suddenly she saw that the Mother appeared in the balcony clad in white and she saw the March Past. Jhumur-di said that the very sight of the Mother made her forget the scorching heat of the sun and she lost the sense of hunger and thirst. In fact she forgot that the Mother was notactuallypresent physically. She did not inform anyone about this experience and and kept it to herself. Three months later in August, when theBulletin of Sri Aurobindo Centre of Educationwas published there was a photograph which clearly showed a figure dressed in white standing in the balcony. Some sceptics claimed that it was only a shadow but Jhumur-di knew that it was the Mother herself. I was quite intrigued when I heard this experience. I searched the August 1995 issue of theBulletinand soon my eyes fell on the photograph that was taken on 24 April 1995. It was really the Mother! She was indeed dressed in white and was looking down at the inmates who were participating in the march-past. (Please find attached with this mail a copy of the said photograph.) Time and again the Mother has said that she would always be present with her children and that she will never leave them. She is indeed with us, always present to help us in our sadhana. I’m reminded of Kapali Sastry’s exclamation (when he was asked by a journalist what will be the future of the Ashram and the sadhana after the passing of Sri Aurobindo): “Passing, passing…who passed away and where?…The Master of Integral Yoga is here, as intensely and concretely as ever…Yes, those that have been looking up to him for guidance and aid in Yoga have not felt him gone, have not felt themselves orphaned, have not felt a void, though, of course, the physical pangs of separation are there…” We know that before the Mother left her physical frame, she was trying to coalesce her supramental body with her physical body but she was unable to do so. In M.P. Pandit’s bookMother and Ithere is an interesting paragraph on page 220 which runs: ‘This morning, while praying, it flashed on me that Mother might discard the physical body and assume the new body and function in it for the furtherance of the work from the subtler plane. She might get the work executed through her chosen instruments. But she would be here in that body close to the field of her work.’ This diary-note was dated 24 July 1973. In another book of his titledThe Mother and Her Mission, he writes (pp. 16-17): ‘Then on the morning of 17th November at about nine o’clock, a particular friend of mine – he has a certain grounding in occult experience, occult knowledge, and normally when we meet we exchange notes – told me, “I have seen the Mother’s body of light.” I got interested. He said, “The new body is full of light but it is not yet dense enough to function in the earth conditions. It is there, and as I was looking at it I got the feeling that the Mother would enter this body the moment it became dense enough to stand and function in the earth atmosphere, seen or unseen. But there is no question of revival of the material body.” And he added, “Those who are capable of seeing the Mother’s halo, aura, they will be able to see that luminous body.” It confirmed what I had perceived some four months earlier; I told him as much.’ Therefore we must note that on 17 November 1973 at 7:25 p.m. the Mother did not die; she just walked into her new, luminous body ‘without dying’, that is, there was no gap in consciousness. To quote M.P. Pandit’s words: ‘They say the cause [of the Mother's passing] was heart failure, but let me tell you the heart failure was not the cause, the heart failure was the result of her withdrawal. She had decided; the moment things were ready, she walked into that body.’ (The Mother and Her Mission, p. 17) So my friends, Jhumur-di’s experience corroborates the fact that the Mother is, all the time, with us and watching us and guiding us silently in our sadhana. Let’s all become a little more sincere so that she can manifest in us. Let’s all try to be her worthy children.